In solidarity with Standing Rock Sioux - pipeline

[Oscar]

Council of Canadians in solidarity with Standing Rock Sioux tribe against pipeline

[ http://canadians.org/blog/council-canad ... t-pipeline ]

August 19, 2016 - 9:55pm

The Council of Canadians expresses its solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and their allies in North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa and Illinois who have mobilized to stop the building of the Dakota Access pipeline by Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners and Calgary-based Enbridge Inc. (which owns a US$1.5 billion share in the pipeline).

The pipeline could carry up to 570,000 barrels per day of fracked oil from North Dakota to Illinois. The pipeline would also cross 200 waterways, including under the Missouri River, upstream of the Standing Rock Sioux reservation (which draws its drinking water from that river).

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers approved the construction of the pipeline on July 25, construction began on August 10, and the water protection protests began on August 15. There is now a "spirit camp" at the confluence of the Cannonball and Missouri rivers, plus a more recently established "Red Warrior Camp".

Inside Climate News has reported, "A groundswell of Native American activists has temporarily shut down construction on a major new oil pipeline with an ongoing protest that has drawn around 1,200 people to Cannon Ball, N.D. Construction workers walked away from their bulldozers [on August 15] after protesters surrounded the equipment and called for an end to construction of the Dakota Access pipeline."

The article explains, "The $3.8 billion pipeline at the heart of the protest would carry about half a million barrels of crude oil per day from the Bakken oil field to Illinois where it would link with other pipelines to transport the oil to Gulf Coast refineries and terminals. The protest was staged at a spot where the pipeline would pass beneath the Missouri River, just upstream from the Standing Rock Sioux reservation, a community of 8,500 along the Missouri River in North and South Dakota. Protesters from dozens of tribes across the country are now camping in tents, tepees and mobile homes at the Sacred Stone Camp a mile and a half from the construction site."

Some news reports indicate that up to 2,000 people are now actively involved in this resistance. About 28 people have been arrested so far in efforts to stop construction of the pipeline.

A legal challenge is also underway that asserts the pipeline violates the Clean Water Act, the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Historic Preservation Act. Oral arguments in this case will be heard on Wednesday [August 24] in Washington, D.C. That is also when the court is expected to rule on the request for a temporary injunction against the pipeline.

Another court case on behalf of fourteen Iowa landowners is also underway challenging the use of "eminent domain" to seize land for the pipeline. (Eminent domain in the U.S. is power of the government to take private property and convert it for public benefit in return for market compensation. The legal challenge asserts that Energy Transfer Partners/ Dakota Access LLC is not a utility and therefore does not have the authority to use eminent domain to build the pipeline.)

At a solidarity rally yesterday, people chanted "No Dakota Access Pipeline", "Rezpect our Water." and "We can't drink oil. Keep it in the soil!"

Pipeline construction was stopped yesterday [August 18], but Energy Transfer Partners has vowed that construction will be completed by the end of this year.

You can follow this on Twitter under the hashtags #RezpectOurWater , #NoDAPL , and #DakotaAccessPipeline

Brent Patterson's blog
Political Director of the Council of Canadians
[ http://canadians.org/blogs/brent-patterson ]

[Oscar]

Sacred Burial Grounds Destroyed, Judge Halts Construction on Portion of Dakota Access Pipeline

[ http://www.ecowatch.com/sacred-burial-g ... 32006.html ]

By Larry Buhl DeSmogBlog Energy| Sep 07, 2016

A federal judge in Washington, DC declined Tuesday [ http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/corp ... e-41889790 ] to order the halt of all construction on a portion of the contentious Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) [
http://www.ecowatch.com/fate-of-dakota- ... 68034.html ] route that the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe [
http://www.ecowatch.com/dakota-access-p ... 72867.html ] had recently identified as sacred tribal burial ground, a site that was bulldozed over the Labor Day weekend by pipeline construction crews.

The ancient site was discovered only days before its destruction and was awaiting review by the state historic preservation office.

At the judge's request, Dakota Access LLC agreed to halt construction on only a small area in contention until the judge issues a separate ruling this week on a preliminary injunction motion brought by the tribe over the pipeline.

The tribe has been locked in a legal fight [ http://www.desmogblog.com/2016/08/29/da ... -engineers ] against Dakota Access and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers over a pipeline that would cross sacred sites and potentially affect water that the tribe depends on. The DAPL pipeline's full path extends across North and South Dakota, Iowa and Illinois.

Standing Rock Sioux Chairman David Archambault II issued a statement saying the tribe was "disappointed that the U.S. District Court's decision does not prevent DAPL from destroying our sacred sites as we await a ruling on our original motion to stop construction of the pipeline."

The tribe had filed an emergency motion on Sunday, Sept. 4 for the temporary restraining order to prevent further destruction of sacred sites.

Tuesday's order isn't the end of these legal battles. Federal Judge James Boasberg is expected to rule on Friday on an injunction that would halt all pipeline-related construction near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. [
http://www.desmogblog.com/2016/08/29/da ... -engineers ]

Violence Against Protesters

On Sept. 3, members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and their swelling numbers of supporters were on their way to a blockade wall near the DAPL construction site to sing and give prayers as the tribe had done every day for months. They would then march back to the site of their protest camp.

On Tuesday morning, however, when they heard the roar of bulldozers from less than a mile away from the construction site, many of them ran to intervene. What they encountered was a scene, many of them say, out of civil rights clashes of the 1960s.

Widely circulated video [ http://www.ecowatch.com/dakota-access-p ... 91259.html ] first aired by Democracy Now shows pipeline security workers using attack
dogs [ http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/ ... rn-violent ] and pepper spray on demonstrators who were protesting the bulldozing of recently identified sacred sites. By the time the security team backed down and drove off, several protesters—including a child and a pregnant woman—were bitten by by security dogs and 30 suffered from the affects of pepper spray.

MORE:

[ http://www.ecowatch.com/sacred-burial-g ... 32006.html ]

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[Oscar]

Federal Agencies Step in After Judge Denies Tribe's Request to Stop Dakota Access Pipeline

[ http://www.ecowatch.com/dakota-access-p ... 95297.html ]

By DeSmogBlog Sep. 10, 2016 08:17AM EST   By Larry Buhl and Steve Horn

Friday afternoon brought a roller coaster of emotions for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and supporters in the battle to stop construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) near the tribe's North Dakota reservation. [ http://www.ecowatch.com/dakota-access-p ... 72867.html ] Shortly after a federal judge rejected the tribe's emergency legal challenge [ https://ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/sh ... 6cv1534-39 ], a joint statement by three federal agencies effectively stopped work on the pipeline until significant questions are answered about potential environmental and cultural impacts. [ https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/joint-st ... g-standing ]

Multi-tribal gathering of demonstrators on the Missouri River to show solidarity against the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Sacred Stone Camp

In August the tribe filed suit to challenge the Army Corps of Engineers' decision to grant permits to DAPL at more than 200 water crossings for the $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline project. The Sioux argued that the project violates several federal environmental laws and would threaten water supplies for millions of people who rely on the Missouri River for drinking water.

The Dakota Access pipeline would snake beneath the Missouri River at Lake Oahe, carrying 450,000 barrels of oil per day from North Dakota to Illinois. Construction has already damaged sites of significant cultural significance to the Standing Rock Sioux, and continues to threaten further sites. [ http://www.ecowatch.com/sacred-burial-g ... 32006.html ]

Snatching Victory From the Jaws of Defeat

Minutes after U.S. District Judge James Boasberg issued a 58-page ruling Friday denying the tribe's request for a temporary injunction to halt construction, the Department of Justice, the Department of the Army and the Department of the Interior issued a joint statement to "cease to authorize construction" on federally controlled lands—essentially nullifying the court's action.

Citing concerns raised by the Standing Rock Sioux lawsuit, the joint statement reads: [ https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/joint-st ... g-standing ]

"The Army will not authorize constructing the Dakota Access pipeline on Corps land bordering or under Lake Oahe until it can determine whether it will need to reconsider any of its previous decisions regarding the Lake Oahe site under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) or other federal laws. Therefore, construction of the pipeline on Army Corps land bordering or under Lake Oahe will not go forward at this time. The Army will move expeditiously to make this determination, as everyone involved — including the pipeline company and its workers — deserves a clear and timely resolution. In the interim, we request that the pipeline company voluntarily pause all construction activity within 20 miles east or west of Lake Oahe."

The statement also invited Native American tribes to continue ongoing talks about their concerns regarding pipelines and similar infrastructure projects.

What Happens Next is Unclear

MORE:

[ http://www.ecowatch.com/dakota-access-p ... 95297.html ]

[Oscar]

U.N. investigator says Dakota Access violates tribe's rights

[ http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2016/09 ... 1060042413 ]

Gabriel Dunsmith, E&E reporter Published: Wednesday, September 7, 2016

A United Nations investigator says the U.S. government violated the rights of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe by approving permits for the contentious Dakota Access oil pipeline.

"Apparently, the pipeline was decided without obtaining the consent [of the tribe], so of course that is a violation of the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples," Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, the U.N. special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, said in an interview last week.

Her claim echoes the call last week of the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues for the United States to heed the tribe (Greenwire, Sept. 1). Tauli-Corpuz operates independently from the forum. [ http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/stories/1060042264/ ] (Subscription Required)

Special rapporteurs normally keep the details of their investigations under wraps, but Tauli-Corpuz said the violations were obvious.

The declaration, which the United States opposed under President George W. Bush only to endorse it under President Obama, requires states to obtain the "free, prior and informed consent" of native groups before greenlighting projects that could affect them.

The 1,134-mile Dakota Access pipeline would carry as much as 570,000 barrels a day of Bakken crude through North and South Dakota, Iowa, and Illinois. The Army Corps of Engineers has issued permits for the project to cross water, but pipeline foes are still fighting the project in court.

After a heated round of arguments yesterday at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Judge James Boasberg sidestepped the request from the Standing Rock Sioux to block construction on a segment of the pipeline near Lake Oahe — a federal reservoir on the Missouri River — but instead brokered an agreement that blocks work along the project corridor 20 miles east of the lake and 2 miles west of it. The work freeze lasts until midnight Friday, when a decision on the broader injunction request will be issued (E&ENews PM, Sept. 6; EnergyWire, Sept. 7). [ http://www.eenews.net/energywire/2016/0 ... 1060042411 ] (Subscription Required)

The Standing Rock Sioux had requested the temporary restraining order Sunday after Dakota Access began grading a portion of the pipeline corridor west of the reservoir, which is adjacent to the tribe's North and South Dakota reservation. The tribe had filed a declaration with the court a day earlier noting a recent discovery of "historically and religiously important stone features and graves" in and around that section of the pipeline's right of way, which is on private land.

The International Indian Treaty Council, which was founded on the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in 1974, appealed to Tauli-Corpuz and three other special rapporteurs last month in hopes of increasing pressure on the Obama administration to shut down the pipeline.

"The U.S. doesn't like to be singled out for human rights violations, which is why this kind of petition is actually very effective," said Andrea Carmen, executive director of the council and a member of the Yaqui Nation.

But the United Nations has little power over U.S. tribal decisions.

Tauli-Corpuz could visit Sioux lands as part of her ongoing investigation but may do so only at the invitation of the United States. And even after her report is published, the United Nations may not move further on the matter. U.N. leaders would intervene only at their own discretion, she indicated.

Tauli-Corpuz's predecessor, James Anaya, did visit dozens of tribes during a 2012 analysis of U.S. tribal policy. He criticized the United States for "broken treaties and acts of oppression," but the United Nations lacked the authority to implement any changes.

Tauli-Corpuz is a member of the Kankanaey Igorot people, a native group in the Philippines. Before assuming her role as special rapporteur, she worked for decades organizing native tribes in her home country around environmental issues, eventually succeeding in the 1980s in blocking the proposed Chico River Dam Project that would have displaced thousands of people.

She also gained recognition for a campaign that effectively shut down a 500,000-acre logging plan by Cellophil Resources Corp., a company backed by Ferdinand Marcos, the dictatorial former president of the Philippines. The logging threatened to decimate ancestral forests and farmland of several native groups.

Tauli-Corpuz plans to send questions to the Obama administration in the coming weeks. The government will have three months to respond.